


A Year Ago

by orphan_account



Category: Cinderella (2015)
Genre: F/M, sorta teen but also sorta not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6387403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The anniversary of Kit's engagement ball brings about a curious game-like tradition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year Ago

Despite having been married for just under a year, Ella was yet to become accustomed to the sensation of being gradually woken from slumber by a pair of lips on her own. Immediately, as if to fuzzy her mind even further than it already was in the morning, a glow of sorts sprouted and she found herself dizzy almost immediately. Struggling to make sense of her surroundings, a little preoccupied by the insistent mouth that moved against her own in slow, familiar movements. She began to respond as her hand reached his face, cupping his cheek just as he pulled away.

“You’re still here.” Ella noted with a faint, tired smile, not rising from the pillows or opening her eyes as she stroked his face. She had waking for the last month or so alone, though he was her companion in the night, and the queen and found that she was rarely seeing her husband in daylight.

“Of course I am, my love.” Kit responded lovingly, retiring the elbow that had been supporting his weight on her right side as he rolled aside, and brown eyes met blue ones with a skeptical look.

“It’s not your birthday, I know that.” Ella listed off, pondering as to why he had not felt the need to rise at the crack of dawn, it was clearly well into the morning as made obvious by the streams of light that ran past the drapes, and he was not reading over letters or warrants.

“You would know if it was my birthday.” Kit agreed fondly, fiddling with a golden lock that fell on the pillow beside him.

“And it’s not my birthday…”

“Oh, you would know if it was your birthday, my love.” He assured her, a sudden suggestiveness now present that made Ella blush and struggle to meet his eye.

“Then why is it, my Kit, that you remain by my side and have not been stolen away by Phillip or one of your ministers to sign papers and hold court?” She inquired after a long, pregnant pause.

“A year ago today we danced for the very first time.” To any other couple, this would mean nothing. What was a dance compared to a birthday, a christening, a wedding anniversary? But a dance for Ella and Kit was everything, most especially if it was the dance.

“And a year ago today I fell in love with you.” Ella smiled, her heart as radiant as the sun in summer as she was taken over by a feeling of absolutely contentment and joy. “How wonderful.”

“And, there shall be a ball to mark this wondrous event.” Kit disclosed, and his wife’s face lit up like a star at dusk. He must have gone through so much work to ensure she had not the faintest idea, Ella could not even begin to imagine how stressful it would have been for him, Phillip and Prudence, attempting to run a country and a royal household without the key manager of such an immense body. Her guilt, however, could not linger for long.  
_

“Would you stand up with me, my lady wife?” Kit requested, after asking the royal couple they had been conversing with to excuse them. The next dance was about to start, and Ella now had a sneaking suspicion of what the musicians were about to play, but kept quiet and gratefully accepted her husbands invitation, kindly say goodbye to the princess and prince they had been talking to.

Sure enough, La Valse de l’Amour began to play as Kit took her waist, his eyes unintentionally sparking the very same way they had done the night of his engagement ball a year ago. They had danced the steps surely a thousand times afterwards, either separately as Ella did chores about the house, together a they practiced the wedding dances and the hundreds of times after that when they just reminisced, in bare foot adventures into the palace ballroom, their state of undress ignored as they swayed to imagined music.

“You know, when you gasp like that, I can’t help but think of us doing a different sort of dance.” He whispered under his breath, meeting her eyes as she twirled into the steps. Ella felt herself blushing furiously, but many would have passed it off as simple exertion, perhaps read too much into it and hope for an heir. That had become a pressing discussion as of late.

“I just think of the first noise you make when I lick you.”

“Kit!” Ella chastised in a shushed whisper, anxiously watching to see if the couples beside them heard his murmurs, but they all seemed too absorbed in remembering the steps. There were certainly some benefits to having that particular dance come naturally to you.

“No, not like that.” Kit teased, lifting her up into the air. “It’s always the same, no matter what. I can’t wait to hear it again, to taste you again.”

“Kit!” Now her heart was racing, certainly not from exertion and predominantly not from panic. What he was saying was making the blood rush to her cheeks, but it was also… Lord, why on earth would he tell her such things in a crowded ballroom, especially as he was trying to get that kind of reaction from her!

If you had told either Kit or Ella that they would spend the rest of their lives at galas and state functions whispering far, far more provocative things than that into each others ears, neither would have believed it, and it would have seemed even more ludicrous that they made a game out of it. The truth was, however, that the royal pair did indeed compete with each other to embarrass the other, the victor decided when their vicim made any noise of astonishment or someone inquired as to what was making them so red. The only conditions were that the match was forfeited as soon as one of them dragged the other off into an unused room, and the victor had to make good on everything they had promised the loser.


End file.
